Vermont Snow Updates 2009-10

Watched a report last night that stated we are a close to a record in waiting the longest period of time for a measurable regional eastern snowfall . If it does not snow by early December we will set a record . We are already in the top 10 for the slowest start to the season with regard to measurable snow. Personally , my own record of skiing 6 consecutive months without the use of machine snow at elevations below 2000' is at stake :evil:

IT'S ONLY FRICKIN NOVEMBER! it's so funny how so many folks, especially out here expect to be skiing this time of year. sunday river has offered skiing way earlier and longer than the past few years and the skiing is on par with most regions out west right now. because it's slow now, prob means that it will rock later, which imho is much better.

rog

IT'S ONLY FRICKIN NOVEMBER!

Click to expand...

Agree 100%. It's practically irrelevant in terms of natural accumulation for the upcoming winter in the East. It is relevant in the West, but even there it's not yet cause for much worry at places like LCC and Mammoth that have some natural base even though it may not be skiable yet. Lower altitude places like Tahoe and Park City the odds of Christmas being good are probably reduced some. But even at those places we're not far enough along to predict much for the season as a whole.

Fortunately the converse is not true, as a big start at many places will affect the entire season, like Mammoth and LCC in 2004-05. Skiing anytime at Whistler this year will not suck, unless you're very unlucky and it rains high during the time you're there.

because it's slow now, prob means that it will rock later

Click to expand...

Sorry, absolutely no correlation anywhere (positive or negative) between snowfall in the current month and snowfall X months later. It's the typical fallacy of short memory, since 2006-07 was an extreme example of this snowfall pattern in the East. The Sierra had a season like that in 1990-91. In both cases the pattern does not exist in long term data.

It's been a couple of weeks since my last report on local snow, and although there's currently nothing new on the ground to mention, there may be some snow on the way this weekend. People that are interested in natural snow for turns around here should keep their eyes on the weather in the next several days. The folks on Eastern have known about this impending change to winter during the Thanksgiving period for a couple of weeks, and I mentioned it in the Storm Prediction thread. I bring it up now because the models are starting to come into agreement about something big happening this weekend, Powderfreak just sent out his preliminary update on the situation, and The Burlington NWS Office has already started to alert people about this potential large-scale storm system during the holiday weekend. Powderfreak and the BTV NWS are of course quite level-headed and professional about their forecasting, so if they are discussing this event at this stage, it is certainly something to watch. As Powderfreak mentions in his discussion, this event could contain substantial liquid, and holds the potential for 30 inches of snow in the Northern Greens depending on its track. Obviously the exact track will dictate who gets the snow, but with the developing level of agreement among the weather models, it's likely that someone in the Northeast is going to get some white stuff out of this event, and those that are flexible can probably find something to turn on this weekend.

-J

The higher elevations of Vermont are already getting snow with this event as of roughly noontime; it looks like the snow level is in the 3,000’ range and dropping. John Atkinson indicated that the upper elevations of Sugarbush have been getting white, and the Coles Pond Weather Cam (in the 2,300’ range) is already showing a nice coating of white on the ground.

J.Spin

We traveled back from Boston’s South Shore area to Waterbury this evening, so here are some travel observations from the current storm. We left the South Shore at around 3:30 P.M. and the temperature was 47 F, but by the time we’d reached the Concord, NH area it was down around 40 F. The precipitation was all rain through that stretch, generally in the light to moderate range, but it was pretty steady and it was clear that we were in the midst of a decent storm. We crossed over to Claremont, NH to have dinner and catch a movie, and as we passed along the south side of Sunapee Lake, the temperature dropped to 38 F. The precipitation was quite heavy at that point (~5:45 P.M.), there were crystals present in the raindrops, and we even saw snow mix in with the rain briefly. I hadn’t calibrated the altimeter on my watch, so I didn’t know the elevation there, but now that I’ve take a quick peek on Google Maps, I see that the road we took (Route 103) tops out at around 1,200’ in elevation. So I can see why the temperature was down and snow was mixing in. Along I-91 in the Connecticut River Valley, the temperature was generally around 40 F, and it wasn’t until we started to gain elevation on I-89 north of Bethel that the temperature dropped back into the 30s F. The temperature bottomed out at 37 F in the high elevations of I-89 (I think I-89 tops out in the 1,500’-1,600’ range, but that marker sign is gone now), and snow was definitely mixed in with the rain at that point. There was no notable snow accumulation on the sides of the highway, but boy was that precipitation coming down heavily with strong winds. In a way we were glad that the snow wasn’t accumulating because the driving could have been pretty treacherous. The temperature climbed back up as we descended into the Winooski Valley, and at the house (495’) at around 10:00 P.M. the temperature was 40.5 F.

Even though it’s not snow down at this elevation, we are getting hit with some heavy precipitation. At around 10:30 P.M. I emptied the rain gauge and found 0.72 inches of liquid in it, but I just emptied it again at 11:30 P.M. and another 0.24 inches had accumulated in the course of that hour. So, we’re getting very close to reaching an inch of liquid for this event at the house, and it’s still raining quite hard out there. The temperature continues to slowly drop here (39.0 F as of 11:30 P.M.) although I’m not sure if we’re going to get cold enough to really accumulate much of anything at this elevation. It is nice to know that all this precipitation is falling as snow in the higher elevations though; they must be getting absolutely pounded based on the rate at which the rain is falling down here. The Mt. Mansfield stake (~3,700’) report from 5:25 P.M. indicated a temperature of 27 F, 0.86 inches of liquid, and 3.5 inches of snow, but I suspect the totals are well past those numbers by now.

J.Spin

The Mt. Mansfield stake (~3,700’) report from 5:25 P.M. indicated a temperature of 27 F, 0.86 inches of liquid, and 3.5 inches of snow

Click to expand...

That's 25% water, so probably some rain/snow mix even up there. Hopefully the temps came down some at night.

I suspect that with so much liquid relative to the amount of snow, there was plenty of water/mush at the front end of the storm as the snow levels were coming down, but it should have been snowing at 27 F when the evening stake reading was taken. As of this morning, Mt. Washington is reporting 24-hour totals of 18.5 inches of snow and 2.44 inches of liquid. I can't say much about the mountain snow totals around here yet, but we did pick up 2.22 inches of liquid in the rain gauge at the house, with the bulk of that falling yesterday evening and overnight when the snow levels should have been down below the summits. Snow levels never came down to the lower valleys, but the web cams at Stowe (below) indicate that even the Spruce Peak Village area (~1,600') received accumulation as of this morning. There should be a good amount up on the mountain, although it could be rather dense.



J.Spin

it could be rather dense

Click to expand...

Dense is what you want for the first big storm over bare ground. That's what's been on top of Mammoth for 6 weeks now, waiting for just a modest covering to produce a decent surface.

We didn’t ski today, but E and the boys and I did stop in up at Bolton Valley to pick up our passes, so I can provide a snow update and a few pictures. Before heading up to the mountain, we traveled to Richmond to pick up some skis that we’d had tuned, and the weather in the Winooski Valley (300’ – 500’ elevation range) was gorgeous. Around noontime it was mostly sunny, the stiff winds from the morning had slackened, and the temperature was hovering around 47 F. It would have been nice if the snow accumulations had made it all the way down to the bottom of the valley as might be more typical by the end of November, but the sharp snow line and high-elevation nature of the snow accumulations did make for some dramatic scenes. With the sun shining, the alpine areas with snow really jumped out in contrast against the snowless valley areas. As we climbed up the Bolton Valley access road, we did see a couple of cars coming down with probably a half foot of snow on them, but we saw nothing in terms of snow along the side of the road until we hit the bottom of the big S curve at 1,300’. There, it looked like some residual snow from the road plowing had remained. By the Timberline base area at 1,500’ there was a more consistent coating of an inch or two, but above that, the snow depth escalated quickly. Up in the village (~2,100’), I checked the depth of the new snow in a level spot in the middle of the village square, and I didn’t have a ruler, but my best guess for the accumulation at that spot would be 8 inches. The snow wasn’t wet, but it was that dense Sierra Cement type stuff and had plenty of substance. The temperature in the village was 35 F and there was a very brisk breeze coming generally from the west that made things feel much cooler. With that temperature and wind, I don’t think the snow is going anywhere immediately for folks that are looking to get out for turns tomorrow. With regard to the wind, I could see that the west-facing high-elevation trails up above Bolton’s Mid Mountain area were quite windswept. With the way the winds were yesterday, it’s not too surprising. We only hung around in the village area, but from other reports I’ve heard it sounds like the snow accumulation was up to about a foot in Bolton’s higher elevations (~3,000’). I just checked Bolton’s website, and they are reporting accumulations of 6 to 10 inches, which would presumably be the main base and main summit areas. A few pictures from today have been added below.













J.Spin

Thanks for the report , interesting pictures showing depth of snow between Timberline and the base lodge. Elevation was key with this snowfall .

those are my ski tracks at the timberline lodge. The right re heading up and the left coming back down.

mini -Trip report
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8323#p49309

Tony Crocker":debqa6ai said:

Dense is what you want for the first big storm over bare ground.

Click to expand...

The dense snow is definitely going to be great for the base; it’s just that there was the possibility for a good amount of dense snow with some lighter stuff on top – that would have made for some more wintry-style powder skiing at this point. Overall though, the dense snow isn’t going to blow away as easily, so it should be really durable. With regard to the snow density, the numbers from the Mansfield stake have come in for today, so here are the storm totals at that location.

Total snowfall: 23.5 inches
Total liquid: 4.58 inches
Current snow depth: 20 inches

That liquid total is one of the larger ones I can recall on Mt. Mansfield for such a short duration (~36 hours) event, but it seems pretty reasonable since even I recorded 2.22 inches of liquid way down here in the valley. There was probably a bit of rain/slush at the very beginning of the storm even on Mansfield as we discussed earlier, but presumably most of that liquid is now tied up in the snowpack. That would put the snow density in the 5 or 6 to 1 range, which should give it some real staying power. From what I’ve heard, the snow skis decently, although folks are recommending going fat as one would expect. If we head out for some skiing with the boys tomorrow, we’ll all bring our wide stuff.

I know there’s been some discussion about how slow this November has been in terms of cold temperatures, natural snow, and snowmaking, but this storm has more than made up for any deficiencies in terms of the high-elevation snowpack on Mt. Mansfield according to the SkiVT-L Mansfield Stake graph:



I know some folks would say that this storm hasn’t really done anything for the skiing, but it’s been a positive in my book. I’d say I definitely fall more into the camp arguing that there’s not a lot of great skiing to be done in November (or even December) anyway unless you really start getting some of the natural snow terrain on board.

-J

mt washington has recorded 24.5 inches so far out of this storm with another 4+ inches expected through tomorrow. with winds nuking out of the nw at over 100mph this snow has surely filled in some gullies/areas. i'm headed up for a look/ski tues and or wed. my girlfriend is at the loaf and said there was 8 inches at her condo and a solid foot up on the mountain as of yesterday. they are opening today with 1700 vert off of the superquad.

i guess cannon was outrageous yesterday with a foot at the base and 18 inches up top. maybe more now.

quite some snow at the base of cannon here:

http://www.cannonmt.com/camshot.html?PH ... 9a820b00ff

mt washington here i come! it's on!

rog

We headed up to Stowe yesterday to do a little skiing with the boys and check out the snow from the big holiday weekend storm. Once we had Stowe’s trails in sight, we got some impressive views. Even though Mt. Mansfield picked up a couple feet of snow at the stake, this storm was so elevation-dependent that the valleys were totally devoid of snow. This made for some strong contrast of the white trails above the rather stark valley hues. We saw the first traces of snow at the Toll House elevation (~1,300’) right about the same elevation at which we’d first seen snow at Bolton Valley on Saturday. We took a quick swing through the Mansfield lot for a look at the coverage, but ultimately headed over toward Spruce and drove up to ~1,830’ near the top of the Easy Street Double where it looked like a good combination of sun and snow. The snow depth was about 4 inches at that elevation. For the ascent, E and I skinned with our CMH fats, and the boys used their snowshoes with their ski boots while I carried their skis. The snow in the sun was spring like, not exactly corn of course, but not actually too mushy since it started out so dense. We headed over toward Lower Smuggler’s for turns, stopping our ascent at the top of the first steep pitch at around 2,100’ or so. The snow depth up at that elevation seems to be in the 6 to 8 inch range. There was plenty of untracked snow on Lower Smuggler’s, and although it was rather soft in the sun, some good turns were made. E and Dylan headed down through the tunnel back towards the Meadows area, while Ty and I traversed across to the top of the Alpine Double Lift and took the steeper shot off to skier’s left. The skier’s right of that terrain was shaded when we came down, and I’d say that turns in that shaded snow were probably my favorite of the day. The snow was still very soft, but it was a little less sticky that what was directly in the sun. Our skiing was done around midday, and temperatures were in the mid 40s F in the lower valleys, and in the upper 30 s F where we were on the hill. Some pictures from the day have been added below:























J.Spin

For our location (Waterbury/Bolton line, elevation 495'), last night was the first time the temperature went below freezing in several days, but I suspect it was a good sign for the local areas making snow. Scott Braaten's update from Stowe yesterday indicates that they picked up about 1 to 1.5 inches of snow and the skiing continues to be very good in the higher elevations of Mt. Mansfield. He should be out again today for those that want a more current update. We also had a touch of snow down at the house yesterday, for just our second accumulation this November. My update to Eastern yesterday evening is pasted in below:

"I decided to check the snowboard at around 11:30 P.M. before heading off to bed, and was surprised to find out that this evening's snow shower activity had actually left some accumulation. Upon measurement, it was only a tenth of an inch, but it actually doubles our accumulation for the month (which pretty much sums up how this month went in terms of valley snowfall around here). That accumulation really snuck in there in the eleventh hour so to speak. I checked the air temperature and it was at 31.1 F, but the ground appears too warm for any accumulation. That accumulation closes off the month at 0.2 inches, which most closely resembles November 2006, coming in with 0.0 inches of accumulation. We only have four Novembers worth of snowfall data at this location, but the average snowfall comes in at 9.9 inches (with a big standard deviation) so we're certainly running behind that number."

J.Spin

Here's a summary of snowfall accumulations reported by some of the Vermont resorts (listed north to south along the Green Mountain spine) with regard to our recent storm:

Jay Peak: 15" - 20" summit (~4,000'), 7" - 10" base
Mt. Mansfield Stake: 23.5" (~3,700')
Stowe: 20" summit (~3,600'), 6" base
Bolton: 10" summit (~3,150'), 6" base
Mad River Glen: 8" - 10"
Sugarbush: 10" summit (~4,000')

-J

Total snowfall: 23.5 inches

Click to expand...

Where are you getting that info? When I use this page http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/?Page=.%2Fmansel.php3&dir=. and ask for "New Snowfall" it comes back with something like 3.5 inches. I tried "Snowdepth" and got the 20 inches you reported, now settled to 12. I've known for years that the "New Snowfall" on that webpage is often understated but have not found a correct source to replace it, until I get end-of-season data.

Tony Crocker":ypi8tkcj said:

Total snowfall: 23.5 inches

Click to expand...

Where are you getting that info?

Click to expand...

Scott totaled it up in a SkiVT-L post on Saturday, but you can also combine the totals from the daily SkiVT-L Mt. Mansfield messages from Friday and Saturday, or go to the local climate section of the BTV NWS site and get the Daily Climate Report for Burlington on the desired date. Access to those Daily Climate Reports seems somewhat time sensitive in that they are only available for ~60 days, but an example of what you get is shown below (Mt. Mansfield data are at the bottom). These are still the same data that are only collected once every 24 hours, in the afternoon, and potentially on top of other snow. So they presumably underreport the day's snowfall, but when you see those data you know Mt. Mansfield got at least that much snow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
These data are preliminary and have not undergone final quality control by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Therefore, these data are subject to revision. Final and certified climate data can be accessed at the NCDC - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov.
Climatological Report (Daily)

000
CDUS41 KBTV 290546
CLIBTV


CLIMATE REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BURLINGTON VT
1246 AM EST SUN NOV 29 2009


...................................

...THE BURLINGTON VT CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR NOVEMBER 28 2009...

CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1971 TO 2000
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1884 TO 2009


WEATHER ITEM OBSERVED TIME RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST
VALUE (LST) VALUE VALUE FROM YEAR
NORMAL
..................................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)
YESTERDAY
MAXIMUM 45 152 PM 68 1990 39 6 42
MINIMUM 40 1159 PM 1 1936 25 15 33
AVERAGE 43 32 11 38

PRECIPITATION (IN)
YESTERDAY 0.31 1.65 1959 0.09 0.22 0.02
MONTH TO DATE 2.85 2.88 -0.03 1.64
SINCE SEP 1 9.50 9.83 -0.33 7.73
SINCE JAN 1 34.29 33.65 0.64 37.42

SNOWFALL (IN)
YESTERDAY 0.0 9.2 1958 0.4 -0.4 T
MONTH TO DATE T 6.4 -6.4 2.8
SINCE SEP 1 T 6.7 -6.7 3.1
SINCE JUL 1 T 6.7 -6.7 3.1
SNOW DEPTH 0

DEGREE DAYS
HEATING
YESTERDAY 22 33 -11 27
MONTH TO DATE 638 767 -129 728
SINCE SEP 1 1394 1508 -114 1445
SINCE JUL 1 1438 1563 -125 1470

COOLING
YESTERDAY 0 0 0 0
MONTH TO DATE 0 0 0 0
SINCE SEP 1 11 36 -25 51
SINCE JAN 1 401 489 -88 463
..................................................................


WIND (MPH)
HIGHEST WIND SPEED 35 HIGHEST WIND DIRECTION NW (320)
HIGHEST GUST SPEED 48 HIGHEST GUST DIRECTION NW (330)
AVERAGE WIND SPEED 18.8


SKY COVER
POSSIBLE SUNSHINE MM
AVERAGE SKY COVER 0.6


WEATHER CONDITIONS
THE FOLLOWING WEATHER WAS RECORDED YESTERDAY.
RAIN
LIGHT RAIN
FOG


RELATIVE HUMIDITY (PERCENT)
HIGHEST 92 100 AM
LOWEST 53 1200 PM
AVERAGE 73

..........................................................


THE BURLINGTON VT CLIMATE NORMALS FOR TODAY
NORMAL RECORD YEAR
MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE (F) 38 68 2005
MINIMUM TEMPERATURE (F) 25 2 1940


SUNRISE AND SUNSET
NOVEMBER 29 2009......SUNRISE 707 AM EST SUNSET 415 PM EST
NOVEMBER 30 2009......SUNRISE 708 AM EST SUNSET 415 PM EST


- INDICATES NEGATIVE NUMBERS.
R INDICATES RECORD WAS SET OR TIED.
MM INDICATES DATA IS MISSING.
T INDICATES TRACE AMOUNT.

&&

LAKE CHAMPLAIN DATA:

LAKE LEVEL..........95.90 FEET
WATER TEMPERATURE...45 DEGREES

MOUNT MANSFIELD DATA:

HIGH TEMPERATURE....28 DEGREES
LOW TEMPERATURE.....22 DEGREES
PRECIPITATION.......3.72 INCHES
SNOWFALL............20.0 INCHES
SNOW AT THE STAKE...20 INCHES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the link. It's tedious to pull them up one day at a time, but at least I can get clean data in-season now. I sometimes go a couple of weeks between lookups (when I'm actually skiing), so the 60-day archive is good enough. The other 4 days in November with snow agree exactly with the Mansfield daily log I have been using, but the 20 inches Nov. 28 is still missing there.